


latibule

by kaijubeau



Series: linguistic semantics [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Has PTSD, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt, hank is a dad and connor is his robo son, no beta we die like men, thats all i got gamers have fun, uh. i literally dont know how to tag this. its been over a year since ive written for this fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijubeau/pseuds/kaijubeau
Summary: latibule (n.) - a hiding place; somewhere no one could find you - a place of safety and comfort.or, with his lieutenant by his side, connor takes another shaky step forward.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor
Series: linguistic semantics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1179926
Comments: 14
Kudos: 172





	latibule

**Author's Note:**

> it has been 475 days since ive posted to this series and i have no excuse. sorry. any of yall ogs out here reading this are real ones. any newcomers, welcome! i strongly recommend reading the previous parts before this one, as it will make little sense otherwise. this is a sort of palate cleanser/warm up for me before i continue this series, if i do. i got it planned but well see. sorry if the ending seems rushed i just really wanted to be done with this thing and get it out there. and ive kinda halfway scanned thru it, so if there are any mistakes please let me know and ill correct them. and, as always, enjoy! ♡

Hank didn't understand androids.

It was no secret that he didn't. Hell, he hadn't even tolerated them just several months ago. But then a goofy looking robot in a suit dragged him out of a bar to work a homicide in which an android was the murderer. Then that same goofy looking android had let a suspect escape to keep Hank from falling off a building. Then he’d spared two androids because they told him they were in love. Then he’d spared another android, because he’d looked into her eyes and seen life, or the potential for it, and had been unable to destroy it. Then he’d thrown off the shackles he’d been born into to help a revolution led by the very people he’d been created to wipe out. Then he’d come back to Hank after everything with that dorky smile and he’d felt something fierce and protective flare up in his chest despite himself.

Hank didn’t understand androids, but he thought he had a pretty good grasp on Connor specifically. Which was why it didn't take him long to notice that something was wrong.

Well. That something was _more_ wrong, more accurately. Something had been wrong ever since the kid deviated, obviously. He’d been terrified of something, terrified and on edge and constantly thinking about something. He’d been hesitant in learning about his new emotions, hesitant in everything he did. It’d taken Hank damn near a month to get the android to open up to him, and even then it hadn’t been completely. He'd been distant and withdrawn, even more so after that initial conversation. Hank had managed to coax a little more information out of the kid since then, but it was a battle every time. Still, he wasn't worried about Connor hiding super important things from him anymore. He wasn't worried about Connor letting things pile up until he was on the kitchen floor about to eat his pistol.

Or at least, he hadn't been. But then he'd seen the same signs of exhaustion he'd seen when Connor had been refusing to enter stasis. It wasn't as severe, more like Connor was entering stasis but not as much as he typically did. Likely because he was sneaking out somewhere every night. Connor thought he was being real slick about it. He waited until a good couple hours after Hank had gone to bed before quietly slipping out the front door. If Hank didn't have a huge dog that worried about the kid just as much as he himself did, it would've taken much longer for him to notice. As it was, Sumo knew it was unusual for either of them to leave the house at such an hour and came into Hank's bedroom as soon as Connor was gone, whining nervously and waking the man up.

He'd damn near had a heart attack when he'd gotten up to see what was upsetting the dog and seen Connor gone. Despite Hank's insistence to the contrary, he knew the kid didn't feel welcome at New Jericho, so that ruled it out as an option. And as sad as it was, there wasn't really anywhere else he could go. The necessary laws for him to return to work still hadn't been signed off on, so he couldn't be at the precinct. Hank knew he didn't talk to anyone, he held other people at an even greater distance than he held Hank, so he couldn't be visiting a friend or anything. He honestly couldn't think of anywhere the kid could be going, especially so late at night.

Some part of him rationalised that Connor was probably fine. He could just be having trouble going to sleep, or entering stasis or whatever, and was going out on walks to try to clear his head. There was little danger in it, as most humans were still evacuated, and Connor was a police model android besides. He was more than capable of defending himself. A part of him rationalised that he was likely overreacting, that there was a totally harmless explanation as to why Connor was sneaking out.

A larger part of him was still stuck on what had almost happened when Hank had tried to leave the kid to his own devices.

The lieutenant knew he'd have to figure this out, or he wouldn't be able to relax the whole time Connor was gone. His own sleep schedule was already being disrupted as he had Sumo waking him up in a panic over the android's outings every night.

Deciding to give Connor the benefit of the doubt before doing anything drastic, he tried to bring it up as casually as he could one evening while a basketball game played quietly on the television.

“Hey, Connor.”

The android turned to face him. He had Sumo curled on his lap, at least as much as the dog could fit himself onto Connor's lap, and his hands were buried in his fur. His head tilted quizzically. “Yes, Hank?”

“You been getting enough sleep? You look tired.”

Connor didn't even bother correcting Hank on his word choice. If he didn't already know something was wrong, that would've tipped the lieutenant off. “I am alright.” The android wrung his hands together and Hank looked down at them subtly. He knew Connor was trying, but there were times where Hank had walked in on the kid scrubbing at his hands furiously in the sink. The burns had lessened, but they were still present.

Hank felt worry curling in his gut. The android had sounded far from convincing. “You would…tell me. If something were wrong. Right, Connor?”

Connor turned to Hank and made eye contact. It was something he struggled with ever since deviating, so it helped lend credibility to his words. “Yes, Hank. I promised not to let things build as they did in December.”

Hank held eye contact for a moment, searching Connor's deep brown eyes. After a few moments, he finally nodded and turned back to the game. “Alright, kid. If you're sure.”

Connor continued looking at Hank, and for one breathless moment he thought the kid was going to say something else, actually offer something up without Hank having to break out all of his interrogation methods. But then the moment passed and the android turned back to the dog in his lap and Hank couldn't help but feel something cold sinking in his gut, as if they'd just taken two steps backwards. Connor's eyes stayed glued downwards for the rest of the night, hands buried in Sumo's fur.

Hank knew that privacy was a new concept to Connor. It was new to all androids, but even more so to him. Before the revolution, Connor hadn't even been alone in his thoughts, unable to question and doubt in peace. It was something Connor was still getting used to, that he had his own space and was allowed to take it up. Hank knew it was only out of worry for the kid, but he still felt guilty for violating that fragile sense of privacy as he quietly followed Connor out of the house.

After a while, Hank berated himself for being a sentimental old fool. He was likely worrying for nothing, doing all of this for nothing, out and about in the cold at some ungodly hour of the night when he could be sleeping. His prior thought, that Connor was just taking walks to destress, was likely correct, as the kid didn't seem to be moving with any sort of purpose, like he didn't have a destination in mind. He was just about to turn back around and go home when Connor turned down a road Hank hadn't been on in months. That, to his knowledge, no one had been on in months.

People never really came around this part of town before the revolution anyway. Most weren't interested in an old, abandoned shipyard. Now, coming here was almost taboo. And people were even less inclined to come. There was something eerie about coming to the place where hundreds of androids, innocent people, had been slaughtered and left to sink to the bottom of the river, along with their freighter.

Hank stayed back, hidden behind a building at the corner as Connor strode forward. He seemed tense, and it only increased as he moved closer to the railing overlooking the water. Hank prepared himself to move, to scream, to do something in case Connor decided to throw himself over the edge. But he didn't. He just stood there, bringing shaky hands up to grip the railing as he stared down. Hank couldn't be sure because of the distance, but he was pretty sure Connor was trembling.

What was he doing there?

“You can come out, Hank.”

Hank just about jumped out of his skin at the words. Looking back up at Connor, he could see the android had his head thrown over his shoulder, looking directly at the corner Hank had been poking around. Hank let out a long suffering sigh as he moved out from behind the building and approached the railing. He should've known Connor would be able to tell someone was tailing him. He was frightfully observant, programmed to be a detective, and he was an android besides. Of course his situational awareness would be far more advanced than that of any human. Hank positioned himself right next to Connor, arms crossed on the railing as he looked out to the water. Connor glanced sideways at him for a moment, probably scanning him to see if Hank’s body temperature was low enough to justify Connor forcing him back home and further delaying this conversation. That apparently wasn’t the case, however, as after that brief moment he glanced back out to the water as well.

The air was eerily still as they stood there, an abandoned harbour turned homeless shelter turned mass grave. Hank would love nothing more than to grab Connor by the arm and drag him back home, to warmth and Sumo and safety, but knew an opportunity like this would not arise again anytime soon. If staying there in the cold in front of the water holding hundreds of bodies meant Connor would initiate a conversation about his layers of trauma, then Hank would stay there until Connor turned to leave.

Hank was seriously reconsidering that sentiment by the time Connor finally spoke up. “This was where Markus and I talked for the first time.”

Overall, it was pretty underwhelming, but Hank knew Connor needed to build himself up to whatever he was trying to say and so he held together the frazzled strings of patience he still possessed. Connor had given him the Cliff’s Notes version of what had happened on the freighter Jericho. That he’d confronted Markus and the android leader had managed to give Connor the final shove he needed to fall into deviancy. Then SWAT had arrived with choppers and ammunition and a readiness to gun down anyone they saw, and everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. Markus had detonated the bombs set on the ship and those who were already killed or too injured to evacuate sank. Hank could only be glad that, although he’d picked the worst possible time to switch sides, Connor had gotten out okay.

Hank gave an easy nod. “Yeah, I remember you tellin’ me about it.”

The sharp sound of metal warping had Hank looking over to Connor. His hands, which Hank had already seen grasping the railing tight enough to hurt a human, had further tightened their grip and the sound of the bar crunching in Connor’s hands in the quiet night was almost deafening. Hank thought about saying something, knowing Connor’s hands were already well on the way to permanent damage due to his consistently harsh treatment of them. There were still silvery blue streaks breaking up the synthetic skin and revealing Connor’s chassis beneath. But he didn’t want to throw Connor off and end the conversation. After this was done and they were home, he’d ask Markus if there was something he could do for them.

“Before I… spoke with Markus, I made a report to Amanda.” That alone was proof of how far they’d thankfully come since Connor first returned to him after the revolution. Even when Connor had opened up about that CyberLife bitch, it had always been ‘my handler’ or ‘the CyberLife representative’, but never that name. Never Amanda, not unless it was a slip of the tongue, a mistake. Hank looked back out to the water, hoping it would ease some of Connor’s anxieties about whatever this was to not feel the weight of Hank’s gaze. The kid got sort of fucky about eye contact and such after deviating. “I told her I found Jericho. I gave them my location.” Connor’s voice was numb and Hank felt horror rising in his chest as he finally realised where this was going.

“Connor—”

“They never would've found it without me.” The difference in his tone of voice was so drastic, compared to how Connor would've said something like that a short few months ago. Pride and satisfaction and confidence in his work had since deteriorated to shame and guilt and pain. “All the people that were killed here… Hank, it’s my fault. If I hadn't taken so long to see, to understand, if I’d just stopped worrying about _fucking Amanda_ , none of this would've happened! I’ve killed so many people…” With that, Connor’s hands released their death grip on the railing in front of him and his elbows came to rest there instead as his head fell into his palms.

Hank had seen Connor cry once. On his filthy kitchen floor, begging Hank to let him blow his brains out to make up for the things CyberLife had forced him to do, crying about blood on his hands that wasn't there and all the people he’d killed, as if he wasn't a victim just like any other android. Seeing it again was damn near breaking Hank’s heart. He scooted closer to Connor, raising an arm to place it around his shoulders and pull him into a side embrace.

“You listen to me, Connor. I’ve already told you this, but I know you got a thick skull so I’ll tell you one more time. None of that was your fault. You were following programming you couldn't break out of. You didn't have a choice. It wasn't your fault.”

Connor was already shaking his head, shuffling Hank’s coat as he did so. “No, I– I could've deviated sooner, I could've–”

Hank shook his own head, even though he knew Connor had no way of seeing it. “You couldn't have. Connor, I know it's scary to admit things are out of your control. But there wasn't anything you could've done differently. You went in doing the only thing you knew to do, and you came out fighting alongside the leaders of the revolution. You helped them get out. You did everything you could.” Connor leaned into Hank, turning to the side so he could wrap his arms around the older man. Hank, not wanting to disturb the kid, remained still except for a hand rubbing across his shoulders.

Connor babbled apologies into the man’s chest, as if a washed up police lieutenant were capable of granting him salvation from sins he didn't commit. Nonetheless, Hank kept his grip steady, looking down at the surface of the water and knowing as much as this was hurting the kid, this was an improvement. It was a step forward, one that Connor desperately needed, one that could show the both of them that Connor was finally, slowly, hesitantly walking the road to recovery.

When Connor had mostly collected himself, Hank spoke up once more. “No more late night outings, okay? You’re scaring Sumo.”

Connor, with no signs that he had cried at all left on his face except for a pair of tear tracks, cracked a small smile. “Yes, of course, Sumo. We can't have that.” Hank rolled his eyes with a dramatised huff as he stepped back from the railing, waiting for Connor to join him. The android cast one final look at the shipyard, at the empty space where Jericho once was, and knew although it would take a while for him to truly accept that he’d done the only things he was capable of doing, that he hadn't acted out of some sort of hidden cruelties, he would have Hank to figuratively and likely literally knock the sense back into him.

For now, he was going to go home with his friend, crawl onto the couch with Sumo, and catch up on his recent lost hours of stasis.


End file.
